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Tuesday, July 7, 2015

On Leaving a Community College Faculty for a That of a Four-Year Institution

83º ~ feels like 91º ~ the swampy days are back, from inside looking out, though, all appears beautiful

While I did draft a poem today (a sonnet, egads!), there was nothing very remarkable about the process, which followed the standard of the previous two drafts. Instead of recording the blow-by-blow account of today's poem, I'd like to address, more specifically, my recent change in jobs. Several readers have expressed an interest in the interview process and my shift from community college to a four-year institution where I'll be teaching undergraduate creative writing majors along with graduate students pursuing an MFA.

The first thing one might need to know about the situation is this: C. and I are fairly well-tied to central Arkansas. We've talked about my going on the job market over the years, but we have a great life here and have not been inclined to disrupt it. Central Arkansas features many institutions of higher learning, so I've mostly kept my eye within this range.

From January of 2005 until May of 2015, I taught at Pulaski Technical College (North Little Rock, AR), with a 5/5 load that always included a heavy emphasis on composition. (In the last four years, my teaching load was reassigned to 4/4 because of my work with the Big Rock Reading Series.) I did have the opportunity to teach introductory creative writing classes, usually one per semester in my later years at PTC. I had incredible support from my dean and my colleagues in the English Department, which allowed me to make the job the best possible fit for my writing life; however, my writing life was not required for my teaching position at PTC.

In August of this year, I'll join the faculty of the Department of Writing and the Arkansas Writers MFA Program at the University of Central Arkansas (Conway, AR) as an assistant professor. I'll be in a tenure-track line for the first time, 12 years after receiving my MFA. The teaching load is 4/4, and I will have some college writing courses. UCA has a thriving BA in creative writing, as well as the new three-year MFA program (begun in the fall of 2012), so I will have plenty of opportunities to teach creative writing classes. I'm pumped to begin a new portion of my teaching life at UCA and to do so with outstanding colleagues.

In terms of landing the job, I followed the same process as everyone else on the market. I saw the call for applications in early fall 2014. I spent five weekends, working six- to ten-hours each weekend, putting together my application packet. My CV was a mess; I hadn't written a letter of interest in years; and my teaching philosophy was a decade out of date. I was thrilled, then, when I received an offer for a phone interview.

True story: I bombed the phone interview. Landed flat of my face. For the first time in my life, I blanked during an interview. I'm not saying I don't have the knowledge or the experience; I'm saying that I couldn't formulate a coherent thought to save my life. In hindsight, I realize that this might have been because I wanted the job too much, and it was most definitely because I didn't seek help in preparing for the phone interview. Being a decade out of grad school, and having not been actively looking for a job, I was unprepared for the set of questions, and I was unprepared to organize my own thoughts on the fly.

In late March, I was surprised to receive an on-campus interview offer. This time, I did seek help / coaching to prepare me for my on-campus interview, which included a presentation on how my writing life influences my teaching life and vice versa. Here I reached out and relied on good friends with years of teaching experience, and one who had recently landed her own tenure-track job and offered great up-to-date insights.

At the end of a very long day of interviewing, presenting, and generally being "on," I knew I'd done well, and by that I mean I knew I'd shown my true abilities as a writer and a teacher, unlike in the phone interview. However, I had no idea how the decision would go.

Here, it might be important to address the fact that, yes, I knew the faculty at UCA prior to applying for the job. The literary community in central Arkansas is vibrant, but relatively small, so of course, we mostly know each other. The folks at UCA had hosted me for several readings in the past. I'd hosted several folks from UCA for readings at PTC. However, I can honestly say that I was not / am not close bosom buddies with any member of the writing faculty. My friendships with them will certainly grow as we work together, but I don't think I was any kind of shoe-in because of those connections.

Needless to say, when the call from the department chair finally did come with the job offer, I pretty much leapt out of my skin with joy. My path to a tenure-track line at a four-year institution is not the traditional one, and I am grateful for the 10 years of teaching at PTC. Many of my students there taught me about grit and determination. They taught me about perseverance in the face of the gravest obstacles, and they taught me that people are capable of immense change. They also taught me how to teach to the student, not to the group and not "to the test." For these reasons, I'm thankful for my time at PTC.

All that I learned about teaching and being an active member of a college community in the past decade came into play when landing this new job. During my on-campus interview, I had concrete examples of both successes and failures from the classroom, and I could demonstrate how I addressed those failed moments when they did occur. I could show my contributions to the college with actual accomplishments and real feedback from colleagues and administrators. Now, I'm building on what I learned at PTC as I begin to craft my new syllabi and learn about the culture of my new department, college, and university. I'm nervous about "leveling up" and about entering the publish or perish paradigm, but mostly, I'm just filled with joy and absolute awe that I have earned this opportunity. I'll definitely add more insights once the academic year arrives and classes get underway. (I can hardly wait!)

6 comments:

Lucia Robinson
said...

Wonderful, and I applaud & share your philosophy of teaching to the student. Since I didn't live in easy reach of a Ph.D. and was happy where I was (and embarked on teaching at age 50), I didn't aspire to a four-year job--but my junior college became a community college & then a four-year college, so I wound up with one anyway. I'm very happy for you, enjoyed chatting with you in Cary, and look forward to reading more of your excellent verse.Lucia Robinson